Rairly

Number Game

They came from

Category: Listen to the rhythm

This morning Buzz wanted to hear ‘Iti se hansi, iti se khushi‘. I was in a hurry so instead of playing it over youtube, I found it on my phone’s playlist and played the song. Buzz and Bugz sang along and danced together.

‘We parented our elder one as we wanted to. The younger one gets herself parented the way she wants to’, said a friend to me and I was stuck by how true that statement was for our family. Rules, instructions, discipline are for other people. They have nothing to do with you and no one can make you do anything you don’t want to. ‘Buzz clean up your toys’, I tell you. You look at me, smile, shrug and walk away. You want to go out, I keep telling you ‘finish your food and you can’, but you are set on going outside and nothing can move you. You run downstairs, you try to put on your shoes, you make so much noise that it is either give in or get a headache.

Your stubbornness and your ability to bring the house down with your screams, unbeatable combination I tell you. You are the first to snatch toys that you want to play with but if anyone so much as touched one of your toys, even when you are not playing with them, is greeted with a loud shout ‘No’ from you. ‘Book, book’, you scream and sit happily as I read to you, but the minute you lose interest, the noise you make and jumping around you do makes it almost impossible to finish reading the book for others who are listening. You love your ‘Pata’ (pasta) but others in the house who love pasta as much try even taking a bite out off of your plate, you scream and you scream.

You are also a stickler for schedule. If something in done a certain way once, it has to be done the same way always. Every morning I give Didi and you your gummy bear multi-vitamins. You used to get one of those while Didi got more. As you grew a little old your dosage went up to two and little one can I tell you how much time and effort it took me to get you to have two of those. And this is when you love gummy bears and look forward to them every day. You kept screaming ‘One, no two gum’, and handing the other one to either Didi or me. Cut to few days later, I tried giving you only one to see your reaction and you were on the ground screaming till you got your two ‘gum’.

You are becoming very independent these days. You want to do everything yourself. ‘Aape’ is your favorite word after ‘Me’. Brush, clothes, shoes, food – everything is met with ‘aape’ from your side. You need no help, till you need help but by then you are so frustrated that you are kicking and screaming all around.

Your choices are very distinct and you don’t shy away from voicing those. Jeans are your clothing of choice. If there is one in your closet then there is no wearing anything else for you. And if there is the one with the yellow flower at the bottom, dare anyone keep you away from wearing that one. ‘Flowaa pant’, you smile after you have it on and what a sight that is. The other piece of clothing that you love are the stockings. Pants and socks in one go and more importantly it signifies that you are going outside; what is not to love! And then no trip outside the house is complete without a trip to the park. How dare we return home without taking you to the park?

As I said, scream and shout are your weapons but when all that fails, you have your brahma-astra. Cry a little – no response. Scream – no response. Run around screaming – no response. Cough – no response. Throw up – there you go, now pay attention. Given all the acid reflux issues you had as a kid, may be throwing up is your natural response when you are too upset but you have learned over time that it gets you complete and utter focus from everyone around, so now a lot of times you force the issue. You actually start fake coughing, which turns in to true coughing and then comes the main deal. How are poor parents supposed to cope with something like that? But then you get what you want and are seen smiling a few minutes later.

There are moments aplenty when we are pure frustrated, at our wits end, not knowing what to do. Do you sense that too? Do you realize that you went too far? I sometimes feel that you do, because you come running, hands on your cheek and say, ‘Sooiieee! Mumma me sooiiee. Me acchaa’. You shower us with kisses and my personal favorite when you touch your cheek to mine and say ‘puchak’, not the sound but the word. Yes sweetheart you acchaa, you are good and we are good.

You have this big loud laugh, that makes everyone around laugh. You have your ‘oh’ when something happy happens around you, that makes everyone around you smile. You have your ‘me’ – ‘me mumma’, ‘me papa’, ‘me didi’, ‘me aunty’, that makes everyone around you agree with you.

You love to talk and want to talk in long sentences, but they don’t come easily to you. So you make your own way through them. ‘Me car, kldasjlk jklsdajksad jkdsajdsa jjlkasduu, mumma drive’, is how your regular sentence goes. You ensure that we pay full attention to what you are saying, pick up only the relevant words and reform the sentence to figure out what you are trying to say. And any delay in understanding and replying back is not met well from your side.

You love to be held, you can’t stay in a place for more than a couple of seconds. You love books, any more than a couple of seconds on any page is not acceptable. You love to go to the park, you don’t stay on any swing/slide for more than a few minutes. You cry and throw a tantrum, you are very quick to say sorry. You want to do everything your way, you copy Didi in everything she does. You don’t listen when I ask you to pick up your toys, you are the first one to come and help me when I empty the dishwasher. You are stubborn to the core, you get distracted easily. You are uniquely you and that is what makes you so special. A smile when things go your way. For everything else there is a scream!

We, your parents, get angry and frustrated and then turn in to a puddle of mush, all in a matter of seconds. This is you sweetheart, all you. And that is what I wish for you always – stay healthy, stay happy, stay you.

Loads of love,
-Maa

leaving you with your current favorite song or as you call it ‘Tiggge gana’

The first time I ever actively thought about blogging was when D said he wanted to create a blog and capture all our various trips in it. Don’t really remember my reaction but I do remember D creating a blog on ‘Blogspot’ writing about his trip up one of the mountains here. The blog was never opened after that first post and is long forgotten now.

A few months after, a friend started her blog and shared a link with all of us. She used to update her blog regularly and I would go read what she wrote. That was my first true brush with anything blogging. I started blog hopping soon after and found quite a few blogs that held my interest.

The first time I actively thought about blogging myself was when Buzz was in her cute stage and I wanted to capture her little actions for years to come. One night, after Buzz was asleep, I opened ‘WordPress’, tried a few log ins, one worked and my blog was born.

D knew when I started the blog, but never really asked about it. He never asked for the URL, I never gave it to him. Once randomly he asked me about my blog and said ‘kuch padha’*. I opened one post, he read, passed some comments, we laughed and that was it.

I, inherently, am a very private person. Writing a public blog is a huge deal for me. The mask of semi-anonymity helps me break some of my barriers and write what I do. In real life post having Buzz and then Bugz, life became super busy and suddenly there seemed like I had no time to myself. My personal space, my time, my very own thoughts.. there was no place to just be. The kids took over everything. My blog became the one place which was just mine. I own it, I control it, I just am. The fact that D does not read it, gives me the much needed space I need at this point in my life. I guess, that I never ask him to read anything I write speaks about how closely I guard my blog and that he never asks too many details except for an occasional, ‘I feel like reading something’, shows the way he respects my space.

Present:

D and I were talking about some milestone for Bugz and that should she not have met it by now. Which automatically got us to, ‘was Buzz at this milestone when she was this old?’ While I was trying to wrack my brains trying to remember, D said:

Go check your blog. I am sure it is there somewhere.

Not a huge deal but it brought an instant smile to my face. The main thought behind why my blog exists today is coming true already. When the kids grow up and ask for it, hopefully they will have a smile on their faces as they read along.

Years later, when I look back to this time of my life, the one things that will stand out most in my memory is the sound of the kids crying.

There is stubborn Bugz, who wants everything her way and can cry endlessly to get her way. There is the over-sensitive Buzz, for whom even the slightest perceived slight is enough to burst in to tears. One starts and the other joins in. Highs and lows; sometimes in sync, sometimes cacophonic; crescendo reached?, who knows; climax not in sight.

Kids have the knack of getting you this close to your break point; shatter all your notions about yourself; make you abandon all your rules; bring you down to your knees; and kick you over the edge.

The kids are asleep. The hellish day that was, is done. My ears still ring with never ending cry fest. I sit and look at all I know about myself, all I thought about myself, all my views on parenting and I come back with a blank. Nothing I do seems right, not one thing seems to make it better. Anger, that I could not keep a handle on; something I would regret, I avoided by sheer will; so close, so close.

What/why/how/which/when, I wonder, as anger still simmers. Till I find the answers, I guess, an Ibuprofen for the pounding head will have to do.

Mornings are my time with the kids. We play, sing, dance, jump, spin, run – have fun. It is also my time to introduce my favorite songs, as a child, to them. Not consciously but that is what seems to happen. I remember a song randomly, start singing out aloud, Buzz joins in, we modify it here and here, sing them out loud and we laugh along, till a few days later we are on a new song.

About a month back, I started on a song called Bang bang Lulu. The tune is catchy and Buzz was hooked. It soon got modified to:

I burst out laughing as I asked him what he was singing. He replied, ‘I am singing the song you girls sing’. Apparently in his sleep induced haze, that he used to listen to us singing in, Bugz turned in to a Kabootar. No matter the number of times I correct him or play the original to him, Bugz continues to be a Kabootar.